A happy night for me

I have just finished pages 11 and 12, so I am very happy tonight! I now have two complete rows of pages stitched. Now that Santa has a face it's going to be very hard to pack him away, but I do need to do that so I can stitch other projects - like a baby birth sampler for our new little girl in the family, and Christmas ornaments for a number of children (Dylan, Georgia, Lucia, Harper, Thomas, Jackson, Brittany, Matthew, Daniel, Amelia, Kate, Matthew, Megan, and David, and there may well be more names added to this list). SO - I have two more weeks to stitch on Jolly Old Fellow, and then he will be packed away until the beginning of 2012. I'm hoping to get page 13 finished before he goes away.

Small HD tonight - come celebrate with me!

Page 10 of HAED Jolly Old Fellow is now finished, and I've made a tiny start on pages 11/12. I'm a third of the way through JOF now - yay! I'll be continuing to stitch on JOF till the end of this month, and for the first 2 weeks in May. I'm now hoping to finish pages 11 & 12 (a tiny page - just 12 stitches wide) by the end of April, and in May I hope to stitch page 13, which is the start of the third row of pages. I am so pleased to be able to say that Maddie has had no further fits and is behaving quite normally, except that she's sleeping a lot more than she used to . But then, she's 12 years old, so I guess she;s entitled to sleep more. And when she's awake, she's quite active and just as bossy as she ever was. Great news! I'd like to be able to say that my Dad was progressing well too - but no such luck. He's very labile in his mood, and once again thinks that we (his children and in particular me - as I have the power of attorney and enduring guardianship, and manage all his affairs) have stolen all his money and placed him in prison. The poor old soul never did have any money in his whole life - he was a hard worker, but raised 6 children and did it a bit tough at times. He's very unpredictable - sometimes as sweet as pie, othertimes he's aggressive and very unpleasant. I have heard more colourful language from my father in the past 18 months than I ever did in all the years before that. Until the dementia started I never once heard him swear in front of a female - now it's another story! I feel so sad for him. It's not the life he would prefer to be living, I'm sure. Old age is not something to look forward to, if Dad's experience is any indication. I keep trying to forget that I'm just 25 years behind him on the age scale!

Santa has a face!

Well, at least he has two eyes now - he's starting to look like a real Santa. It's not a good pic - he's actually nicer when you're looking at the fabric (not so washed out). I'm pleased with my progress - page 10 is about half-done now. I'm now quietly confident that I'll finish the second 'row' (the rest of page 10, and pages 11 and 12) in the next six weeks. I need to pack JOF away in mid May, and it's extremely unlikely I'll find any more stitching time for him until December, if then. I want to get as far ahead as I can before he's packed away,because I would really love to have him framed for Christmas 2013, and there's still a lot of stitching left to finish!

Five little finishes

Christmas gifts for five little Irish-Aussie girls. The stocking design is a favourite of mine - it's adapted from LA's Christmas Caboodle leaflet (1986). I first stitched it in 1986, and I have stitched it every year since, for different children. My best guess is that I have stitched this design at least 80 times. There are five more of these ornaments on my stitching list for 2011 - but the colours will be different for the next batch.

Home again ...

refreshed and relaxed after a lovely week camping with friends in beautiful Bonny Hills, on the coast just a three hours drive north for me. It's a lovely area, and I always enjoy my time there. This time was a little sad, as my friend who lives there has just recently been diagnosed with lung and spinal secondaries to the breast cancer she was treated for a couple of years ago. She also had a brain tumour removed last November and had radiation therapy afterwards. Now she has just started chemo for the lung and spinal secondaries. It was good to see her, and also to see how positive (but realistic) her attitude is. I hope that if I was faced with the same situation that I would be able to handle it in the same way that she is.

I did manage to get some stitching time while I was away. I stitched up five little Christmas ornaments - for five little Irish-Aussie girls (from 3 families) who will, I hope, pay me a Christmas visit again this year. I still have to add some beads and make up the ornaments. I hope to have a picture to post by the end of this month.

Midnight Journey is home from the framer

I am very pleased with the framing, and relieved to have Midnight Journey home safely. The mount is a red flock - I think it looks very pretty, I think that this is the earliest I have ever had my annual Christmas project finished.

I've started stitching on page 10 of JOF - just a tiny part stitched, but at least it's a start! It's gone away now till the beginning of April. If I get the chance in the next week or so I'll make a few Christmas ornaments for visiting children.

Little HD at my house

I have just put in the final stitches in page 9 of JOF. Yay! This page stitched up much quicker than I anticipated. It did have a fair amount of solid colour blocks, which I notice the next page has little of. I'll have very little chance of stitching on JOF for the rest of this month, but I'll get back to it in April. I have now revised my target, and I now hope to finish pages 10, 11, and 12 (which is a very small page) before mid-May.I am very pleased to report that Maddie has had no further fits, and seems to be pretty much back to her usual self. I am so happy about that.